The coup leader who's become an anti-Western hero in Africa and beyond

Ibrahim Traoré counts admirers from Nairobi to London, but Russia is also trying to court him

- Caroline Kimeu & Benoit Faucon

Three years ago, Ibrahim Traoré was a junior army officer in Burkina Faso's armed forces. Today, he has emerged as a surprising anti-Western hero preaching self-reliance and resilience with fans across Africa and beyond.

Since toppling the West African country's previous military leader in 2022 and making himself president, Traoré has won the kind of glowing admiration from people across the continent that has eluded African leaders since the days of antiapartheid icon Nelson Mandela and the generation that led the independence struggles.

"Many Africans are disillusioned with the West," said Ayotunde Abiodun, an analyst with SBM Intelligence, a Nigeria-based geopolitical research consulting firm. Traoré, he said, has become the anti-imperialist face of that sentiment.

Russia has tried to court him, seeing him as a way to accelerate the decline of France's influence across the arid countries of the Sahel, the wide band of land bordering the southern reaches of the Sahara.

But Traoré has his own agenda of reviving the Pan-African movements of the past. Whether he succeeds in putting Burkina Faso on a stronger footing and pushing back a long-running Islamist insurgency could influence what happens elsewhere across the region.

The 37-year-old appears to be genuinely popular as people across the region tire of a generation of aging leaders widely seen as corrupt and beholden to the West.

In April, thousands of Burkina Faso citizens poured into the streets of Ouagadougou, the capital city, in solidarity with Traoré after an alleged counter-counter-coup failed to oust him from office.

The protesters were also incensed by comments by Gen. Michael Langley, head of U.S. Africa Command, accusing Traoré of misusing the country's gold reserves. Traoré partisans saw Langley's comments as a pretext for Western intervention, and and Pan-Africanist leader Thomas Sankara.